There is Sweet Music Here
by Morralls
Summary: When Sam died, he took most of Nate with him. What Sophie misses most is the music.


Author's Note: Okay, this came about mostly because I would love to see Tim play the piano, and also because I love the piano myself. Anyway, the song he plays can be found here (you tube[dot]com/watch?v=Xi5DlVKAb84) , and this is the version that I liked enough to link it, though I would recommend the concert version with Sarah Brightman. The song is beautiful, and the lyrics, which are included below, are also beautiful, and very appropriate for Nate and Sophie, I think. The proper version of the song is in Italian. Review please.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The piano sat for days, then weeks, then months, yellowing the carefully kept, pristine ivory. The sharp and flat keys turned gray from layers of dust and months of disuse, the polished mahogany lost its sheen, and the bronze pedals lost their luster, and I woke up that night to the now familiar smell of alcohol and came out of our room to see that the pages and pages of music, carefully composed and recorded onto line paper were gone. I saw a flicker of orange and red outside the window and went out into the cold winter air to smell fire. I watched Nate watch the pages curl, then burn under the flames. Pieces he had composed over eight years, all beautiful, all works of an artistic genius, gone in a moment.

They left behind a broken man, a shell of who he had once been. A man I had loved and lost, not because our love had changed, but because the Nathan Ford I had married had died along with Sam.

Months passed before I saw him at the piano again, a fresh stack of paper, lined for music, with hastily scrawled treble and bass clefs, staring at the keys, his fingers resting gently in the position for the key of G. I didn't say anything. I stood and watched and hoped. It was as if the music was a metaphor for his life. If he couldn't find that music again, he would be lost. I watched, waiting, until he sighed and dropped his hands from the keys.

It was that night that I asked for a divorce.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The piano had sat there since the beginning, the ivory keys yellowed, the sharps and flats grayed by a layer of dust. The mahogany wood had no more sheen, and the once bronze pedals had lost their luster long ago. The piano had been there, but it hadn't been played in years, hadn't even been looked at.

I had heard Nate play only a few times, but he was amazing, playing Mozart as easily as he would a children's song. Sam had taken so much of Nate with him when he died, but what I missed most was the music. When I finally realized how much Nate had lost when Sam died, I was devastated, but it wasn't until I found out that he had lost the music that I truly cried for him.

It had been a year. I had finally made my choice, had finally come home, and when I came in, I saw him in his apartment, poised, back straight, hands resting gently on the piano keys. Nate took a deep breath, and I held mine. A haunting melody drifted up from the piano, the crescendos and tune so beautiful and delicate that it brought tears to my eyes. Nate was playing again, and that was more than enough to welcome me home.

The song drifted to a gentle, beautiful close and I wished that it could go on forever, and I could stand there, not moving, not saying a word. Just enjoying the music. _His_ music. "I was wondering when you'd come back." He hadn't turned, shouldn't have known that I was there, but that was the thing about Nate. He _always_ knew when I was there. "I was hoping it would be soon."

I nodded, though he didn't see, tears in my eyes, my voice thick. "I'm home, Nate."

"Welcome home, Sophie."

_When I'm alone I dream of the horizon and words fail me.  
There is no light in a room where there is no sun  
and there is no sun if you're not here with me, with me.  
From every window unfurls my heart the heart that you have won.  
Into me you've poured the light,  
the light that you found by the side of the road._

_Time to say goodbye.  
Places that I've never seen or experienced with you.  
Now I shall, I'll sail with you upon ships across the seas,  
seas that exist no more,  
it's time to say goodbye._

_When you're far away I dream of the horizon and words fail me.  
And of course I know that you're with me, with me.  
You, my moon, you are with me.  
My sun, you're here with me with me, with me, with me._

_Time to say goodbye.  
Places that I've never seen or experienced with you.  
Now I shall, I'll sail with you upon ships across the seas,  
seas that exist no more,_

_I'll revive them with you.  
I'll go with you upon ships across the seas,  
seas that exist no more,  
I'll revive them with you.  
I'll go with you._

_You and me._


End file.
